In 2012 President Barack Obama announced his government was willing to spend $63 million on a series of commemorations of the American War in Vietnam stretching over a decade, we in Veterans For Peace knew we had to respond.

Part of a Veterans For Peace campaign to counter the Pentagon’s effort to rewrite history includes a letter writing campaign. Over the past four years we have collected and delivered, on Memorial Day, 400 letters written to The Wall. We print the letters out and then put them into envelopes marked "Please Read Me". At 10:30am on Memorial Day we descend into The Wall in Washington, DC to solemnly place these letters where they belong at the feet of the names on that memorial. They are read by visitors to The Wall throughout the weekend and then are placed into the National Parks Archives. We take this ceremony very seriously. It is not a political gimmick. It is an act of reverence.

So, if you reading this, that’s a good start. Let me tell you something about this sacred place, something you would have never known otherwise. For me it begins with line 122 of the panel you’re facing, knee-high and to your left. That’s where my name should be, somewhere close to my best friend, had another detonation taken place. But that’s a much longer story.

My friend Captain Richard C. Halpin was never going to have a long story, much like every name arrayed on these polished granite panels to your left and right. His was ended instantaneously by a surface-to-air missile on March 29, 1972, near Tchepone, Laos. (I ran into one of Dick’s wingmen years later and learned that Dick had volunteered to fly this sortie in place of a fatigued roommate.) His combat tour was over. His bags - as it turned out, his personal effects - were packed for home. He was listed as missing in action for years until teeth fragments of his were found in 1986.

Dick had dreams. Survive this deployment, get home to California in one piece, catch up with friends, do some surfing, and eventually teach high school history. Like most of us, he was behind the power curve. He had a lot of catching up to do, but he’d have been great. Unlikely famous, but his students would have never forgotten “Mr. Halpin,” a funny, engaging guy, always piquing their curiosities. What a waste.

Capt. Richard Halpin’s name should have never been in this death pool, for so many reasons. The crewman he replaced has lived with his own moral injury for decades, having co-opted Dick’s slot in history. And family and friends will continue to die a little every time they visit Panel 2 West. Most of the other visitors to other panels on future Memorial Days will never understand why anyone fought and died in that faraway conflict. Why Vietnam? Who lost, who won. Go ahead, ask someone. I couldn’t have told you in 1972, not really, Dick either. It was just our war, but the lies and treachery of Truman to Nixon fed the grinder.

Just walk away; knowing full well that The Wall is the last memorial of its kind. Our 21st century interventionist conflicts are much too numerous to even track, much less memorialize future KIAs. Soon a Global War on Terrorism Memorial, not far from where you’re standing, will serve as an altar to this country’s first multigenerational war without end. Our first living war memorial, built on the same lies.

The author of this post is Gene Marx from Bellingham, Washington. Gene is a Vietnam veteran and former Naval Flight Officer with VAQ-135 aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1971-72. Past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, Gene is currently a member of VFP-111. Letters to The Wall is a project of VFP's Vietnam Full Disclosure campaign.

What if they called a war and no one came? Well, now’s the time folks. The apparent march to war with Iran represents a pivotal moment in the historical arc – the rise and fall – of our republic come empire. This potential war is so unnecessary, so irrational, that it borders on the absurd. Still, since the U.S. now fields a professional, volunteer military, few citizens have “skin in the game.” As such, they could hardly care less.

Unlike in past wars – think Vietnam – there is no longer a built in, established antiwar movement. This is unfortunate, and, dangerous for a democracy. See the US Government operates with near impunity in foreign affairs, waging global war without the consent of the people and, essentially, uninterested in what the people have to say at all. It should not be thus in a healthy republic. People should not fear their government; governments should fear their people.

So let me propose something seemingly ludicrous. It’s this: since Americans only trust the military among various branches of government, and since that military is both over adulated and ultimately responsible for waging these insane wars, it is within the military that active dissent must begin. That’s right, to stop the war America needs clean cut, seemingly conservative, all-American soldiers and officers to start refusing to fight. The people will back them; trust me. These guys are heroes after all, right? I mean few will pay attention to some aging hippie protester – even if he or she is correct – but even Republicans might tune in to hear what a combat vet has to say.

Remember, we soldiers take an oath not to a particular president or a certain government but to the Constitution. And that constitution has been violated time and again for some 75 years as US presidents play emperor and wage unilateral wars without the required, and clearly stipulated, consent of Congress, I.e. the people’s representatives. Thus, one could argue – and I’m doing just that – that a massive military “sit-down-strike” of sorts would be both legal and moral.

Sure, it’s a long shot. But there is historical precedence for dissent within the US military. It is an unknown but vibrant history worthy of a brief recounting. Back in the mid-19th century, many US Army officers were so appalled by the futility and brutality of the three American attempts to subjugate the Seminole tribe in Florida that a staggering portion of the young subalterns simply resigned.

There was also dissent in the ranks during the Mexican-American War of conquest. Though they did their duty, many officers were appalled by the blatant aggression of their country. A young lieutenant – and future general / president – named US Grant stated that he knew “the struggle with my conscience during the Mexican War. I have never altogether forgiven myself for going into that. I had very strong opinions on the subject. I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign.” It’s unlikely that very many Americans even know that prominent statesmen, too, have often been against wars.

Maj. Danny Sjursen, a Truthdig regular contributor, is a retired U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, "Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge." He lives in Lawrence, Kan. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet and check out his new podcast "Fortress on a Hill," co-hosted with fellow vet Chris "Henri" Henrikson.

It has been more than nine years since I resigned in protest over the escalation of the Afghan War from my position as a Political Officer with the US State Department in Afghanistan. It had been my third time to war, along with several years of working in positions effecting war policy in Washington, DC with the Department of Defense (DOD) and the State Department. My resignation in 2009 was not taken lightly by my superiors and my reasons for opposing President Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan found support amongst both military officers and civilian officials at senior levels in Kabul and Washington.

I was repeatedly asked not to resign and was offered a more senior position within the State Department. Richard Holbrooke, then the President’s appointed representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan told me he agreed with 95% of what I had written and asked me to join his staff, while the US ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, told me my analysis was one of the best he had encountered and stated he would write an introduction endorsing my resignation letter if I remained with the US Embassy in Afghanistan for the remainder of my tour. In conversation with the US deputy ambassador to Afghanistan he agreed the war was not just unwinnable, but also corrupt, and stated he would not let his children serve in such a war. Further support for my views was provided by my counterparts who were serving as political officers in the most violent parts of Afghanistan: Kandahar, Helmand, Kunar, Nuristan and Oruzgan Provinces. These men and women made clear their agreement with my assessment and my resignation. The support from the military was equally effusive and genuine, often such support included apologies along the lines of “I’d like to resign too, but I’ve got kids heading to college in a few years…” (the golden handcuffs are an incredibly instrumental and integral aspect of the US Empire’s infrastructure). When I asked Karen DeYoung, the Washington Post correspondent who wrote the front page, above the fold story on my resignation for the Post, why she wrote such a piece about me, she replied she could not find anyone at the Pentagon, State Department or White House who disagreed with me.

I relate the above not to cheer lead for myself, although the sadness and despondency from witnessing the wars up close and from afar and their cruel constant murder, does, at times, necessitate such crutches for me, but to relay my own personal observation of the great lie of war in action; the ability of the machine of war to propel itself forward even when those most intimate with the war, those most responsible for it and without whose support and effort the war could not continue, carry on the war whilst knowing and living the lie full well.

Nearly almost a decade after my resignation, there are reports of a possible peace deal in the making for Afghanistan. What I recognize, so clearly and sickeningly, just as my mind, and my soul, can recall the bright scarlet red of fresh arterial blood that dulls in contact with dust and cloth, or the clay-like frozen set jaw of a dead young man, whether he have been called an Afghan, American or Iraqi, are the same lies of the war that were so skillfully and effectively utilized by politicians, generals and the media to escalate the war in 2009 now being recirculated to defeat any current attempts for peace.

Sacrifice does not confer sanctity

When President Obama entered office in 2009 less than 30,000 US troops were in Afghanistan. Within a year and a half that number would reach100,000 US military personnel along with 30,000 NATO soldiers from Europe and over 100,000 private contractors. Since 2001, more than 2400 US service members have been killed in Afghanistan, nearly 1800 of them since 2009. European armies have had more than 1100 soldiers killed and more than1700 contractors have been killed while performing jobs that in previous wars would have been done by US soldiers. Tens of thousands have been physically wounded while hundreds of thousands suffer from traumatic brain injuries, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), moral injury, depression, substance abuse and other “hidden” wounds of war. These hidden wounds have very real consequences: the US Department of Veterans Affairs reports young men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq (a great many of them have served multiple deployments to both wars) have suicide rates six times higher than their civilian peers, while infantry units, those that have performed the most killing and dying, have been seen to have suicide rates fourteen times higher than young civilian men their own age. In real numbers that means, since 2001, likely more than 9,000 US veterans who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq have been lost to suicide after returning home.

Most New Year’s resolutions last but a few days. By late January, the crowd in the gym dwindles down to its normal size. Most resolutions are fantasy, a simple act of wishful thinking. We all know this. Still, dreams are what make life tolerable. So, in that spirit, let’s take a break from the standard critique of existing U.S. foreign policy and conjure a world as it should be, not as it is. Consider this the ultimate New Year’s make believe – a resolution to swear off militarism and forever war in the Greater Middle East.

It would begin with a restructuring of the entire legal framework for American war-making. US soldiers still kill and die – and bomb at least seven countries – under two outdated Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). One, in 2001, authorized the president to battle the culprits of the 9/11 attacks, the Al Qaeda organization. The other, in 2003, approved the tragic-comic invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. Neither resolution is relevant to the fights at hand, which, therefore are only of dubious legality. In 2019, the US Congress should reassert its constitutional primacy in warfare, overturn the old AUMFs, and demonstrate the courage to debate and vote on each of America’s ongoing wars. If the people’s representatives truly believe any of the ongoing shooting wars – in Syria, Libya, Niger, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – are worth fighting, then let them say so publicly and declare war.

My guess is that most congressmen, knowing the prevailing public skepticism of ongoing overseas interventions, wouldn’t authorize the continuation of these disastrous campaigns. America’s forever warfare state might wither under the light of legitimate oversight. Nevertheless, no matter how Congress voted, the very act of public debate and accountability would be a refreshing change for our ostensible republic. When it comes to the momentous decisions of war and peace, more, not less, transparency should be the norm in 2019.

Help Bellingham’s Veterans For Peace Celebrate Armistice Day 2018! Sunday, November 11th, 10:30 AM atthe Church of the Assumption, 2116 Cornwall Ave

Bellingham's Veterans For Peace and supporters of peace will be standing in solemn commemoration of the 100th year anniversary of the end of the First World War across the street from the Church of the Assumption, 2116 Cornwall Ave, on Sunday, November 11 at 10:30 AM.

One hundred years ago this month the world celebrated peace as a universal principle. The last round of World War I was fired on November 11, 1918. All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War went silent during the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of that eleventh month. Nations mourning their dead collectively called for an end to the butchery of all wars. Armistice Day was born and designated as “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated."

After World War II, the U.S. Congress decided to rename and designate November 11 as a national holiday, Veterans Day. Commemorating an end to hostilities quickly morphed into honoring the military and glorifying war. Armistice Day was flipped from a day for peace into a day for displays of militarism.

Acclaimed author Kurt Vonnegut lived the misery of World War II as a U.S. infantryman in Europe and wrote of the rebranding in "Breakfast of Champions":

"Armistice Day has become Veterans Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans Day is not. So, I will throw Veterans Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things. Veterans Day celebrates 'heroes' and encourages going off to kill and be killed in a future war -- or one of our current wars."

Next Sunday thousands of churches across the world, including Bellingham’s Church of the Assumption, will ring their bells 11 times slowly in solemn remembrance at 11 in the morning to mark the end of the war that, in retrospect, ended peace. It's time for Americans to reclaim Armistice Day.

Join us in silent tribute, with worldwide millions, in commemoration of the Armistice centennial.

The author of this post is Veterans For Peace Lifetime Member and Vietnam Veteran Gene Marx, the Communications Coordinator of the CPL Jonathan Santos Memorial Veterans For Peace Chapter 111.

The West Coast Action Alliance’s extensive web site was taken down and completely destroyed in July 2018 without our knowledge or consent. It contained more than four years’ worth of legal analysis, reporting, and whistleblower materials on the US Navy’s unprecedented expansion of warfare activities that are affecting communities in western Washington’s Whidbey Island, the San Juans, and the Olympic Peninsula.

While some readers who are Navy personnel or Navy supporters may rejoice, we remind you that the First Amendment is among the freedoms that many Americans have defended with their lives.

The good news is the web site can still be found (minus many of the large files) by going to the Wayback Machine, typing in westcoastactionalliance.org, clicking on “browse history,” and choosing the most recent version from July 2018.

The West Coast Action Alliance is part of a large citizen network, but we are also part of a small cadre of people who for years have been doing the tedious detective work of analyzing the Navy’s thousand-page Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and Environmental Assessments (EA), all of which claim none of the Navy’s extraordinarily loud and disturbing activities in our region will have any “significant impacts” on wildlife, habitat, our communities, our drinking water, or our economies. Analysis, commentary and suggestions for letter-writing are the kinds of information we shared on this web site. It also served as a law library on this issue.

1. What we know about how the web site was destroyed: Despite our annual subscription fee for web hosting being fully paid with six months left on it, not only was the entire web site destroyed, the backup file was also quickly dispatched. When asked for an explanation, a web host company representative said the reason, despite our fully paid subscription, was because of a separate, overdue “support” charge of $7.19, of which we were not aware. The company has still not coherently explained what this additional “support” charge was for, nor why we weren’t notified that it was due.

In early 2018, this web host, 1and1.com, reduced by 75% the amount of time a backup would be made available, from thirty days to seven. In addition to failing to notify us of this, they also failed to notify us that the destruction of our web site was imminent because of this overdue $7.19 “support” charge. Despite thorough searches of our files, no email or other notifications of termination of service from 1and1.com have ever been found.

Men younger than this war could now be sent there to die, we have a responsibility to stop that from happening

Joe Glenton is a British Army veteran and writer. He was court-martialed and jailed, in 2009, for refusing to return to Afghanistan because he opposed the war.

Donald Trump has requested more British troops be sent to Afghanistan. It is very likely the crisis-hit UK government will agree. Neither the request nor the answer are related to Afghan, British or US security in a meaningful sense.

It is telling that so many of those whose arguments for leaving the EU were based on national sovereignty are silent on US control of British foreign policy. I support leaving the EU but recognise Britain's relationship with the US is far more toxic for our own country and the wider world.

Let us recall, for example, there are no EU military colonies in Britain, that the EU does not to all intents and purposes control our nuclear arsenal and that the EU dragged us into precisely zero illegal middle eastern wars. These things are all true of the US and affront UK sovereignty.

Deployments at the direction of belligerent US leaders must be at least forcefully opposed. With a UK military reduced in manpower due to austerity and a series of epic vanity projects – carriers, submarines, fighter jets – being built largely to support US, not British, global reach the time is ripe to consciously uncouple from the US.

In 2018, the term "identity politics" is often associated with the promotion of tokenized personalities rather than on the representation and advancement of oppressed communities within society. This form of identity politics often revolves around empty partisan placards and exclusive single-issue platforms rather than on forming inclusive alliances meant to stimulate fundamental structural change. As such, it reinforces a populism that serves white supremacy and patriarchy.

The crisis of identity politics has undermined the concept of intersectionality, which is viewed as critical to the struggle for liberation from all forms of oppression. The recent assassination of the Brazilian Black queer activist Marielle Franco and the consequent public uproar demonstrate the threat intersectional leaders pose to the ruling establishment that uses division and preserves privilege to stifle change. Leaders such as Franco serve a vital unifying role in a peoples' transnational solidarity movement that embraces -- rather than eliminates -- identities.

Ashanti Monts-Treviska co-manages a social enterprise, Cascadia Deaf Nation, which focuses on creating a member-owned cooperative model that co-creates thriving spaces with Deaf Black Indigenous People of Color (DBIPOC*) in British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon. Monts-Treviska is currently a doctoral student in transformative studies and consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Gerry Ebalaroza-Tunnell is a Pacific Indigenous scholar and transformative coach who intermingles Indigenous epistemology and Western philosophies.

Together, Monts-Treviska and Ebalaroza-Tunnell facilitate spaces for dialogue that shift paradigms and challenge the status quo. They are currently working on producing a resilience and adaptability workshop to address the dynamics between trigger and response.

In this interview, Monts-Treviska and Ebalaroza-Tunnell discuss the importance of intersectionality and decolonization as fundamental aspects of building a just and equitable society.

For Immediate ReleaseApril 11, 2018 Veterans: U.S. Attack on Syria Could Lead to Nuclear War Call for Veterans and GI’s to Resist Illegal Orders

A leading veterans’ organization is warning that a U.S. attack on Syria could lead to a nuclear war. Russian military forces in Syria will undoubtedly be among the targets of U.S. missiles. Russia has said it will shoot down U.S. missiles, and attack the “platforms from which they are fired,” i.e. U.S. ships.

“Why the rush to war?” asked Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace. “Why is the mass media cheerleading for war instead of asking hard questions? Why are Democratic and Republican politicians trying to out-do one another with calls for ever more massive attacks on Syria?

“There is no proof yet of a Syrian government gas attack, only a video made by a fundamentalist rebel group that wants more U.S. intervention. Even if the reports are true, a military response will only lead to more death and destruction, and dangerous escalations.

“We are talking about a direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers,” said Condon. “Why would the U.S. risk nuclear war over dubious chemical weapons claims?

“Veterans have longer memories than the press and the politicians,” said Condon. “We remember how we were lied into the Iraq War with false reports of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ U.S. wars throughout the Middle East have caused millions of deaths and destroyed entire societies. Our soldiers and their families have also paid an extremely high price. Veterans, GI’s and their families will not accept another war based on lies. We will be protesting in the streets, in the suites, at media outlets and at military bases."

All military personnel, from low ranking GI’s to the top generals and admirals, have an obligation to disobey illegal orders. Orders to carry out acts of war against a sovereign nation that is not threatening the U.S. are illegal orders.

“We swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” said Condon. “Right now those enemies are those who would rush our country recklessly into another devastating war.”

Contact: Gerry Condon at 206-499-1220.

The submitter of this post is Gene Marx from Bellingham, Washington. Gene is a Vietnam veteran and former Naval Flight Officer with VAQ-135 aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1971-72. Past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, Gene is currently a member of VFP-111.

When U.S. Army soldiers ended their massacre of elderly men, women, and children in a South Vietnamese hamlet 50 years ago—on March 16, 1968—perhaps 500 civilians lay dead.

The green troops expected to meet Vietcong forces, but instead found unarmed families. “During the next few hours, the civilians were murdered,” Seymour Hersh later wrote. “Many were rounded up in small groups and shot, others were flung into a drainage ditch at one edge of the hamlet and shot, and many more were shot at random in or near their homes. Some of the younger women and girls were raped and then murdered. After the shootings, the G.I.s systematically burned each home, destroyed the livestock and food, and fouled the area’s drinking supplies.”

The My Lai massacre still shocks the conscience.

It’s hard to fathom how a group of young American men, most of whom would never have killed anyone but for the Vietnam War, spiraled out of control together, perpetrating atrocities that rival any committed in the annals of human warfare.

And yet, whenever a country’s civilian leaders decide to send young men to fight any war of sustained length, it is almost certain that discipline will break down somewhere, that savagery will take hold sometime, and that shameful evil will be done, as had happened during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

A country can minimize the evil perpetrated in its name, by its soldiers, by going to war only as a last resort; maintaining discipline as best as is humanly possible during armed conflict; holding war criminals responsible for their deeds; and treating those who stop or uncover crimes against humanity as heroes rather than villains. The hero of the My Lai massacre was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jr. Along with the members of his crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, he began observing the U.S. troops in Sơn Mỹ Village from the air, believing them to be attacking enemy forces. It took time for him to realize that the soldiers of Company C were committing mass murder. At that moment, he could easily have just flown away.

Instead, he landed his helicopter, confronted heavily armed child killers and rapists amid their killing frenzy, and saved the lives of at least 11 civilians. As TheNew York Timesdescribed it decades later in his obituary:

He touched down near a bunker in which a group of about 10 civilians were being menaced by American troops. Using hand signals, Mr. Thompson persuaded the Vietnamese to come out while ordering his gunner and his crew chief to shoot any American soldiers who opened fire on the civilians. None did. Mr. Thompson radioed for a helicopter gunship to evacuate the group, and then his crew chief, Glenn Andreotta, pulled a boy from a nearby irrigation ditch, and their helicopter flew him to safety.

Upon returning to base he reported what he saw. And that likely saved many more innocents, for commanders ordered a halt to an operation that had been planned to include forays into other nearby hamlets where more killings could have taken place.

When I reflect on the My Lai massacre, I cannot put myself in the minds of the dozens of men who perpetrated it nor the three who risked their lives to intervene. I don’t know if anyone can fully explain either savagery or heroism in war.

But a country needn’t solve any mystery to know how it ought to respond to mass murder. And that’s why, in my judgment, the U.S. should feel the most shame for the fact that just one man, Lieutenant William Calley, was ever punished for the mass killings. Found guilty of murdering no less than 20 people, he was sentenced to life in prison, but put on house arrest instead after President Nixon intervened. In the end, even he served just three-and-a-half years of house arrest. Then he went free.

He is now 74.

And Hugh Thompson? After news of the My Lai massacre reached the United States, this was his experience:

“After it broke, I was not a good guy. I was sure not being invited to Annapolis or West Point or any other university that I’ve been to since, because I was a traitor. I was a communist. I was a sympathizer. I was neither one of those, I didn’t think. I was very confused about why I was being treated this way, because how wrong can it be helping a fellow human? And I’m no pacifist either. You know, I’m not one of these peacenik guys. So I was just very confused, and that went on for about 30 years.

“I became invisible. When it first broke, people thought everybody was picking on Lieutenant Calley. Believe me, Lieutenant Calley was very guilty. There is no way to get around it. But we, being Americans, we cheer for the underdog, so that’s what people were thinking. They thought the establishment was picking on this little guy. The turmoil the United States was in during this time was quite significant. We had demonstrations on every campus in the United States except about three, and I guarantee they were right outside your gate, because we had been there too long. We were [the demonstrators said] nothing but a bunch of baby killers, you know, and it was just a bad time for America.

And Congress came after me real hard. A very senior congressman made a public statement that if anybody goes to jail in this My Lai stuff, it will be the helicopter pilot.”

He later told 60 Minutes, “I’d received death threats over the phone. Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up.” He and his crew did not receive the Soldier’s Medal until 1998. He lived to see the Army teach his behavior as a model of good soldiering. He died in 2006.

If the Armed Forces could train its members so that the murder of civilians would never again occur, and so that all soldiers possessed the moral rectitude and courage of Hugh Thompson, it would—and the moral risks inherent in wars of choice would shrink. Unfortunately, no army can totally eliminate war crimes perpetrated by its worst soldiers, nor can any army simply replicate the best of its men.

Meanwhile, the government’s unwillingness to prosecute torturers, despite its treaty obligations, shows that it sometimes remains willing to tolerate war criminals as it fights its enemies, and that the public is often oblivious to misbehavior by its soldiers.

That’s why, even though the Armed Forces have learned from My Lai, the surest way for the U.S. to avoid its next crime against humanity is for it to avoid wars of choice. Admittedly, the possibility of war crimes cannot by itself tell us whether it is prudent or imprudent to participate in a given conflict; but the next time that a war is being considered, rather than pretend that no American soldier would ever intentionally rape, maim, or murder, the near certainty that sustained warwillinclude atrocities perpetrated by Americans should always at least weigh against waging it.

The VFP-111 Tipping the Scale blog is not an elite space, reserved for experts or professional bloggers. This is a blog for real people who are willing to share themselves honestly and vulnerably. Please send content to vfp111.org or FB/Chapter 111.